


how long have we been dreamside

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Jossed, Red Romance, lucid dreambubble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Space players investigate kisses, comparative xenobotany, and the nature of dreams.</p><p>(summary by skelody@lj)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 15/min

The mid-afternoon Alternian sun burned down brightly, and Jade squinted to see through her thick glasses and shimmering heat waves. She stood in the midst of an improbable Eden in the otherwise completely barren desert. Beyond the tops of meticulously-sculpted shrubs and the petals of high-climbing blossoming vines there was nothing but unending waves of dunes fading into an uncertain distance.

By her side, Kanaya Maryam knelt to fondly regard a small plot of what looked like ruby-colored lotuses, gently pinching the tips of their leaves as if checking for galls. Jade told herself she had no real reason to stay, that she should wake up so she could get to work preparing for the Scratch. But she couldn't bring herself to do so yet.

  
\-- show dreamlog --

GG: omg this place is so pretty!!!!   
GG: i really wanted to check it out last time even if we were in the middle of aradias magical alternian history tour, too bad we didnt have enough time   
GG: but seriously this is the most amazing alien garden with the most amazing alien plants and i want to know as much about them as possible!!!!!!   
GG: like ummmmmm how about this one, what is it called??   
GA: Unfortunately Trolls Dont Make A Habit Of Meticulously Naming And Cataloging Every Species Like Humans Do   
GA: Since We Are Fated To Leave Our Home Planet And Never Return I Suppose We Grew Accustomed To The Idea Of Not Getting Overly Attached To The Native Flora And Fauna   
GA: Especially Considering The Fact That A Majority Of Them Have Evolved To Kill Off The Weak   
GA: This Very Specimen Included   
GA: But I Suppose If I Had To Spontaneously Give It A Name I Could Call It   
GA: Hmm   
GA: The Bioluminary Infant Eating Tree   
GG: :D!!!!   
GA: Actually Now That I Think About It That Sounds Terrible   
GA: Could You Disregard What I Just Said   
GG: no that is a lovely name!!! i love it! <3   
GA: I Must Warn You That The Feeling Is Not Mutual On The Plants Part And That Its Bite Is Considerably More Painful Than Its Aesthetically Pleasing And Complementarily Colored Bark So Please Refrain From Touching It   
GA: But On The Bright Side   
GA: When No Feeder Grubs Are Available And I Am Busy It Does An Admirable Job Of Repelling Or More Specifically Consuming The Local Hordes Of Undead That I Will Abstain From Dreaming Into The Bubble With Us   
GG: how considerate of you :p   


  


Jade turned to examine another plant at random. And hesitated. Earth and Alternian flora differed in a near infinite number of ways, but the most obvious was probably color. Sure, of course flowers on earth spanned the visible spectrum and then some, but there was a reason why the word “greenery” existed. Whatever the Alternian equivalent of chlorophyll was, it was a lot more flexible to reflected light in comparison to its terrestrial counterpart. Wherever she looked, her vision exploded in vivacity: aquamarine blossoms framed with cerise sepals, jet-black fruits connected with a network of scarlet stems, trees with iridescent bark and translucent leaves, fields of cyan grasses waving in a breeze like tentacles.

And this was only in a single garden comprised of species that could tolerate the arid environment. How much more plant life existed on the whole planet? She probably wouldn't be able to study them all to satisfactory detail even if she had spent her whole life on Alternia rather than on a desert island on earth. Where could she possibly start in a dream?

She glanced back over her shoulder to see Kanaya looking in her direction, a lotus flower tucked in her hair, tugging lightly at the fingertips of her own hands.

  
GA: Is Something The Matter   
GG: oh! no, its just...   
GG: do you miss it?   
GA: By It Are You Referring To Fighting The Undead Masses   
GA: Or This Plant In Particular   
GG: yes :)   
GA: I Set Myself Up For That Didnt I   
GG: maybe :(   
GG: if you really think about it, those zombies and these plants, your home and this desert and even the whole planet it stands on........   
GG: theyve been meteored by skaia and destroyed by the game. as far as the universe is concerned, everything were looking at doesnt exist   
GG: except here, in your memories, in your dreambubbles   
GG: otherwise this tree might as well never have been planted in the first place   
GG: i guess thats one thing the horrorterrors did for us that was actually a little nice of them   
GG: make it possible for us to revisit our old life and realize what we took for granted before we played the game and destroyed our worlds   
GG: its just too bad that we wont have the chance to explore more before the scratch happens and well have to abandon this universe too :(   
GA: Jade   
GG: haha...   
GG: sorry i didnt mean to get so depressing all of a sudden!   
GG: im actually going to have to wake up pretty soon so i guess maybe im just a little frustrated that youll never get to show me all the cool stuff in your garden, and ill never get to show you mine   
GA: Maybe We Still Could   
GA: In Another Dream   
GA: In The New Universe   
GG: ....... but there definitely cant be dreambubbles there because we are so not bringing over the horrorterrors :|   
GG: otherwise we would really have screwed up!!!!   
GA: True Enough   
GA: And I Am Fully In Agreement With That Last Comment   
GA: But Consider This   
GA: How Exactly Are Dreams Supposed To Work Anyway   
GG: ???   
GA: It Occurs To Me That The Both Of Us Have Spent Practically Our Entire Sleeping Lives Awake On Prospit   
GA: Unlike The Rest Of Our Comrades We Have Never Actually Experienced What It Means To Have What Could Be Described As A Quote Normal Dream   
GA: Well I Mean   
GA: Obviously We Must Have   
GA: In My Case It Would Be During That Brief Period Of Time After I Pupated And Designed My Hive But Before The White Stranger Contacted Me   
GA: However I Dont Actually Recall What The Dreaming Experience Was Like Since I Had Roused On The Moon So Early In Life   
GA: I Believe That Memories Customarily Play A Certain Role In Dreams In The First Place And That This May Account In Some Part For The Setup Of These Bubbles   
GA: Of Course This Is Only Speculation On My Part But Intuitively It Just Feels Right   
GG: i dont know if people can usually share dreams though!   
GG: rose taught me about the collective unconsciousness once but it doesnt work like these dreambubbles do >__<   
GA: Though That May Be True For Your World It Could Be Remedied In The New One   
GA: Successfully Creating And Maturing The Prize Universe Endows The Winning Players With Limited Power In Rewriting Its Laws Of Reality   
GA: Its Possible That This Is Something You Can Change If Youd Like To   
GA: In Fact Im Absolutely Certain That You Can Do It   
GA: I Have Full Faith In Your Abilities   
GA: But Even If That Falls Through   
GA: There Will Be Other Gardens   
GA: Ones Based In Reality Even   
GA: We Will Cultivate Them Together In The New Universe   


  


Kanaya turned to gaze at the distant horizon. Jade followed her gaze reflexively in an almost Pavlovian response to years of cloud-watching and future-seeing. Prospit dreamers learned to regularly check in on the sky. They never knew what they were going to find.

What Jade found was that there was something about the radiant curve of Kanaya's shoulders over her strapless dress, something about her delicately painted lips that was just as if not more distracting than fields of unknown plants. Jade itched to research all three in intimate detail, if only she had more time.

  
GG: kanaya... i have to go now   
GG: its getting really close to the critical moment and i probably shouldnt have risked being here in the first place since were running out of time   
GA: Yes That Appears To Be A Precious Commodity Nowadays   
GA: Im Sorry And Youre Right I Shouldnt Have Brought You Here   
GA: The Fault Is Mine   
GG: nooooo no dont apologize, this is the last chance well ever be able to meet like this in a bubble and probably the last chance i could ever see your garden :(   
GG: im really really really happy i could do that <3 <3   
GA: Im Glad To Have Shown You   
GG: also   
GG: i wanted to let you know how much i appreciate your help all this time   
GG: i would never have been able to make this genesis frog without you   
GG: so   


  


Kanaya's shoulders tensed in surprise when Jade took one in a careful grip and stood on her tiptoes and took off her glasses with her other hand and tilted her head in for a calculated kiss she had deliberated over stealing for hours. She'd been distracted by the other girl's lips for a long time. More exactly, a single dream ago. Maybe it was the color: green like the reflection of chlorophyll pigment, like leaves of extinct terran flora, a green like her namesake, a green that practically asked to be tasted.

  
GG: ill do my best <3

  


Flower colors were still fading from behind her eyelids and a memory of a slyph's lips lingered on her own when Jade woke up and touched her fingertips to her mouth. For the last few seconds of a dying dream, she imagined that Kanaya had kissed back.

But the moment was over and Jade scrambled out of bed, grabbed the crystal ball that held the flickering slime tadpole of a newborn universe, and ran for the gate that would take her to the Beat Mesa. There may or may not be other gardens, in the future. For now, she still had a game to win.


	2. 0.25 hz

The fire of distant suns glittered through null space, and Kanaya peered through a dark universe, searching for a familiar constellation. She floated in the midst of an asteroid belt in an alien galaxy glowing with mineral dust, patterned with gravity fields. Beyond the faraway lights of dying stars and newborn meteors there was nothing but nebulae and void stretching into an unknowable eternity.

By her side, Jade Harley spread her arms to embrace the infinite sky, then laughed and tried to do a frog stroke through space. Kanaya told herself that she should wake up, should tend to the others after their narrow trans-dimensional escape, should make sure that no traces of the game survived and that their planet would be able to provide for them adequately and that the laws of their new reality were working reliably. She should wake up, but she couldn't bring herself to do so yet.

  
\-- show dreamlog --

GA: Is Everyone Asleep   
GG: yes!! were all exhausted. dont worry, theyre fine   
GG: there will be plenty of time now   
GA: But There Is So Much Yet To Be Done   
GG: i know :( even though the sessions over orz   
GA: Everyone Has An Important Job To Do   
GA: Ours Just Happen To Transcend Universes   
GA: Anyway Jade Could I Possibly Ask   
GA: Where Are We Now   
GG: where do you think we are? where this space is???   
GG: it could be our new universe. it could be our new universe millions of years in the future, when new stars are born and old ones died and everything expands soooooooo many light years away from where it is now   
GG: it could be your old one. or it could be your old one millions of years in the past, from a collective unconscious memory that can never be realized and that you can never remember   
GG: it could be a sister universe, or an alternate universe, or it could be a paradoxical space that doesnt exist anywhere but in this dream   
GG: what do you think?   
GA: Um   
GA: At The Very Least I Can Conclude That Were Not In A Bubble Due To The Absence Of Tentacles In The Periphery   
GA: Did You Succeed In Rewriting Dreams In Our New Universe   
GA: Or Am I Being Irrationally Paranoid In Entertaining Another Unnerving Thought That Inexplicably Occurred To Me Just Now   
GA: That Without A Bubble Youre Just A Projection Of My Imagination   
GA: That Youre Not Even Here At All   
GA: That Im Lost In Space Alone   
GG: :o :o :o   
GG: kanaya do you really think about me that much?? should i be flattered???? <3   
GG: what makes you so sure you arent just a part of my dream?   
GA: Perhaps I Cant Make A Truly Accurate Judgment Call Then   
GA: Id Like To Imagine That I Could Be Certain Of My Own Existence Even If Its Just In A Dream   
GA: But Since You Are Acting In A Frustratingly More Mysterious Manner Than Usual Which Is Always A Thing That You Do When You Know Considerably More About The Situation Than Anyone Else Then I Suppose I Will Have To Concede Defeat   
GA: Though If I Believe I Could Make A Decent Approximation Of How You Might Act In A Dream Situation If Circumstances Call For It   
GA: I Would Rather Have A Straight Answer   
GG: hmmmm if i were a projection i would give you the straight answer youre looking for wouldnt i?? unless you know me well enough to tell that i wouldnt do that and took that into account when dreaming me up :p   
GA: Damn   
GG: hehe dont worry of course ill tell you the truth! i know exactly how the dream system will work from now on. its all thanks to you kanaya that we can be here so i owe you an explanation <3   
GG: its called lucid dreaming back on earth. you can do anything here, stuff that you cant in bubbles because those are limited by personal memories, or in reality because those are limited by pesky laws of physics even if we did rewrite a few   
GG: we can wear dresses spun from star clouds or earrings made of planets. we can take a trip through wormholes or dance in arms of spiral galaxies. we dont even have to stay in space. i dont actually know why you chose to incarnate it, but its pretty symbolic!   
GG: we can go everywhere, do anything!!! were free!!!!!   
GG: after being in prospit for so many years......   
GG: dont get me wrong its great and i love it but   
GG: sometimes   
GG: i remember getting tired of gold and metal and skyscrapers   
GG: and always visiting my friends but never seeing them wake up...   
GG: so even though flying and growing extra arms and exploring the moon was really cool   
GG: i realized when we dreamed together in your garden, in your bubble, when you told me i could change things   
GG: that its just so much more fun when youre not alone   
GG: so i made it so   


  


Kanaya knew the feeling. More than she'd care to admit, especially when it applied to herself twice over. It was hard enough when you're a kid and operated one circadian cycle away from your friends and every other troll on the planet. It was even harder to wake up on Prospit and find everyone still asleep, even in dreams, even on a faraway moon where everything else was different. It was hard, and Jade could half understand, and that was enough.

There was something about the way Jade's hair floated nebulously around her face, like she was underwater, and stray strands kept falling distractingly in the way of the girl's bright green eyes whenever her glasses weren't reflecting celestial glare. Kanaya clasped her own fingers to stop from reaching out and lacing them in wavy locks that practically asked to be touched.

  
GA: I Would Like To Ask A Favor Of You   
GA: Both As An Experiment To Confirm Your Reality And To Explore What This New System Is Capable Of   
GA: As Well As To Sate My Own Curiosity And To Honor A Wish You Had Mentioned Previously   
GG: anything you want!! <3   
GA: Then As A Starting Point   
GA: May I Visit A Memory Of Yours   
GA: I Confess Ive Always Wanted To See How The Plant Life Of The Universe I Hatched Turned Out   
GG: :) of course, kanaya

  


The stars and space around them solidified into a new dreamscape, dominated by a familiar marble tower overhead. But Jade's home stood on a literal island in a vast sapphire-colored sea rather than on a metaphorical island of plants in an ocean of sand. The sun's rays were noticeably milder and less lethal than Alternia's. The air and water and land were filled by birds and frogs and lizards rather than the hulking undead. And the garden...

Alternian and earth flora differed in a near infinite number of ways, but the most obvious was probably color. Sure, plants on Alternia covered a range as broad as the hemospectrum's and then a little more. It always made things difficult when Kanaya tried to organize her garden so that her flowers wouldn't clash with neighboring plots but instead balance comfortably with their surrounding hues. She had always thought that green was an almost perfect complementing presence and that Alternia needed more plants with that rare color, but earth appeared to have made up for the lack in glorious plenty. Wherever she looked, her vision drank in verdancy: Prospit-golden blossoms framed charmingly by green sepals, large and bulbous orange fruits topped with dainty green stems, trees with white trunks offset elegantly by a canopy of green leaves, rows of slender green stalks with brown cattails that swayed just like Jade's hair did in a sudden ocean wind. Where could she even start?

She found the answer when Jade spun a heel to turn and fondly regard the play of sunlight on sea. It struck Kanaya that the most beautiful shade of green remained the witch's eyes, which were suddenly obscured by one flash of lens glare too many. Before she could help herself she had already plucked the annoying glasses from Jade's face with one hand, twined her other into that amazing brunette hair, and leaned down to kiss the girl this instant. This time, neither of them woke up.

Some seconds later, but not many, Kanaya remembered she had wanted to explore Jade's garden almost as much as her lips. This time, she could still do both, and then some.

  
GA: Ill Show You The Rest Of My Garden If You Will Yours   
GG: its a deal!!!!!!!   
GA: And Didnt You Mention Something About Star Cloud Dresses   
GG: why yes i did   
GG: also   
GG: lets make them strapless <3   


  


There would be other gardens and dresses and stars and clouds in the future. For now the witch and slyph shared a first lucid dream.


End file.
